Protesters sit on the road in plastic handcuffs after being arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge during an Occupy Wall Street march Photograph: Jessica Rinaldi/Reuters

To the hundreds of Occupy Wall Street protesters hemmed in on Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday, it felt like a trap. Hundreds of people had streamed onto the bridge without impediment, only to find their path blocked, and their retreat prohibited.

The NYPD, however, claims it gave "numerous warnings" to protesters not to take the road lanes and only arrested those who failed to heed the exhortations to stay off the road.

They tell a similar story: of confusion at the division between the pedestrian walkway and the traffic lanes on the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge, of apparent police acquiescence to the march proceeding into the traffic lanes, of shock when it became clear the police intended to arrest everyone on the bridge, and then of hours of confusion in police precincts across the city as overworked police officers struggled to process a huge volume of arrests.

I've posted extracts from these accounts below, starting with testimony from the point at which the marchers reached the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge.

But first some context: protesters say this video shows police led them onto the traffic lanes of the Brooklyn Bridge. It shows a number of police officers apparently headed by one, wearing a long, orange-lined coat, leading protesters into the Brooklyn-bound traffic lane.

The New York Police Department says it warned protesters not to go onto the bridge. Paul Browne, the NYPD chief spokesman, said: "Multiple warnings by police were given to protesters to stay on the pedestrian walkway and that if they took the roadway they would be arrested."

From the marchers' accounts, we have established that a small group decided not to take the pedestrian walkway. Instead, they stopped at the entrance to the traffic lanes, chanting "take the bridge!" and putting pressure on the police line. As the police video shows, a warning was given – but eventually the police gave up their attempts to holding the line, appeared to let the group though, and even led them onto the bridge.

Some have suggested these breakaway leaders may have been "agents provocateurs". What is clear is that the march had now divided, and the hundreds of protesters bringing up the rear had no indication that walking onto the bridge would lead them to be arrested.

The following accounts are all from people who were on the march. Unless stated, all of them were arrested.

Stephanie Keith, 45, photographer, Brooklyn NY

The march went past City Hall and toward the bridge, where the pedestrian walkway goes up, and the traffic lane goes off to the side. Some people in part of the march stopped there and took a stand, chanting "Whose bridge is this – our bridge! Take the bridge!" This was a a small group of people who were whipped up into a fervor.

The police told them they would be arrested if they went onto the traffic lanes of the bridge. But with the noise of the chanting, there was so much confusion that I doubt more than 25 people heard the warnings. The protesters started pushing forward, gaining ground on the police.

The police then just turned around and started walking up the ramp. Once the police had turned around and started walking, the protesters then followed. The police gave the impression they would be escorting the group over the bridge.

From that point, until they stopped the march on the bridge, the police didn't say anything more about arrests. Maybe some New Yorkers would know that this wasn't allowed, but a lot of people in the back of the march would not have know that it wasn't permitted. It was only when we got about a third of the way up the bridge that the police turned round, blocked the roadway, and read from the same script – that people would be arrested.

I don't think the bridge thing was planned – it just sort of happened. These people [those who led the march onto the traffic bridge] were dissatisfied with the march on Police Plaza on Friday night, they thought it was too passive. They took it upon themselves to take it over the top.

Kate Shiebler, school teacher, Boston

The original plan was to head over the Brooklyn Bridge via the pedestrian walkway. Some people decided to take the road instead, including us. We knew there was a risk, since we were near the front of the march. We were probably a few rows back from the front, and we heard a march organizer say that we should stick to the pedestrian walkway, but we never heard or saw any NYPD say this.

Hundreds behind us didn't hear anyone make any announcement, and assumed they were following the permitted march route. NYPD waving people forward and leading the march over the bridge furthered this assumption.

MLE Davis, 36, teacher, Harlem, NY

When I got to the walkway/roadway split, I heard one of the organizers say that the walkway would be "safer", so I headed up and looked over. When I saw a group of police officers seeming to lead protesters down the roadway, I figured that we had their consent, blessings, and protection, and climbed down to join those walking on the road.

I never heard anyone say one word about it being against the wishes of the NYPD - honestly, I thought they were escorting us across.

Jarrett Dougherty, 27, Philadelphia

Once we got to the bridge the march was entering the bridge from whatappeared to be an entrance open to the march. We followed. There were blue shirt police around but not nearly in the same amounts as there were earlier in the march.

Absolutely none of the officers leading up to the entrance informed us that we were actually entering the roadway! About 100 feet onto the roadway another protester up ahead turned around and fired back a message that everyone needed to turn around and get on the walking path to the left. If it was not for this individual we would have completely unknowingly, and without the least hinderance, walked onto the roadway of the Brooklyn Bridge.

David Scorca, 26, New York

The march moved along smoothly until we reached the mouth of the Brooklyn Bridge. Everything just suddenly jammed up and the march expanded out into a massive crowd.

Everyone was chanting "Whose streets? Our streets" as a police officer with a megaphone read something inaudibly off of a piece of paper. Then he and the eight other officers behind him turned and started walking up onto the bridge.

The crowd followed as the police led the way and while some of them even walked beside us. And so the pressure from the jam was released onto the street portion of the bridge. As we continued, people began climbing the fence and jumping from what I then realized was the pedestrian path onto the street with the rest of the march.

Carly Smith, 30, doctoral student, Brooklyn, NY

When we got to the Brooklyn Bridge, a line of police appeared and divided the crowd. Some went to the upper level pedestrian path, and others on the other side of the police line were funneled onto the lower roadway, in the left hand lane. We were part of the latter group.

There was no clear way of going back once we were on the roadway, and at no time did any police make an announcement that we should not continue – the police walked next to us, and things remained peaceful. I assumed they were going to let us continue, as we would have moved along and crossed the bridge within the next 15 to 20 minutes. My wife Rebecca and I and one male friend found ourselves at the back of the march.

Suddenly, towards the middle of the bridge, a huge number of police appeared behind us with cars and vans. Again, no announcements were made. Apparently the same thing happened on the other side, at the front of the crowd. We were quickly penned in with orange netting on all sides. No one was ever given a chance to turn around or to get out of the situation.

On the bridge

Carly and many others who contacted the Guardian described the fear and panic on the bridge as people realised they were trapped. This audio recording gives an impression of the confusion and fear, with people passing telephone numbers of lawyers.

The vast majority of the others were picked off one by one by police officers, their hands cuffed with plastic ties, and they were lined up to be taken away for processing.

Some were transported in police vans, others were taken way in MTA buses that had been commandeered by the NYPD. In all, more than 700 people were arrested.

The following accounts illustrate the chaotic scenes at New York police precincts.

Sofía Gallisá Muriente, 25, freelance filmmaker, New York

My friend and I decided we would get arrested together to make sure we ended up in the same van, and we discussed the merits of getting arrested at the beginning or at the end.

Finally we decided the later we got arrested the longer it would take to process us and the later we would get out. So we had some water, some snacks, made some last phone calls, moved our backpacks to be front to be more comfortable, sent our friend the contact info of some people around us to get them reported to the lawyer's guild and were calmly arrested when our turn came.

The officer who arrested me literally waved me over, which at least was less demoralizing than hearing "next!", which was how others were called. We were arrested in groups of five and led away by an officer. Later we would learn that apparently in NY each officer can only make five arrests a day, so we all needed different arresting officers to fill out paperwork for us, etc.

All the vans, correction buses, pens and MTA buses that were taking arrestees had left full so we had to wait for them to come back. It started to rain and got very cold and we just stood there on the bridge handcuffed, getting soaked while some people looked over from the walkway and took photos.

Eric Hart, 32, props manager, Queens, NY

It's around 5pm when I text my wife, "I'm trapped on Brooklyn Bridge. They're not letting us out." After a half hour or so, the front clears up enough to see what's going on: the police are arresting everyone and taking them away. They have garbage bags full of those zip-tie cuffs (they call them "Flex-cuffs"). As they get their paperwork ready, they basically point to someone in the crowd; that person steps out, turns around, gets cuffed, and lines up.

When they have five people in a line, they hand them to an arresting officer (an AO), who marches them down, presumably off the bridge, though later we see they are simply bringing them to another line. It's taking forever because they don't have enough cops, they don't know where they're bringing us, they run out of cuffs at one point, etc. I keep side-stepping on the off-chance that they'll end this charade and let us all go. Some people are even saying they're just marching them off the bridge and letting them go at the bottom. But it soon becomes clear there's no way out, and it would be better to get it over with since it's becoming dark and cloudy.

When a policeman points at me, I step forward, turn around, and get handcuffed. They line me up with four other people and hand me to my AO. This is somewhere between 5:30 and 6pm based on the last texts I sent. We march down the bridge.

We get down to where they're loading buses, but they're out of buses, so we stand single-file. It starts raining hard, and it's cold. We stand there for maybe 45 minutes to an hour. Eventually, more paddy wagons and a few MTA buses arrive. None of the cops, even the ones in charge, know where they're taking us. The AO and his partner are from a different precinct, and they're worried about their car, which was parked on the bridge. The sergeant tells them to leave the keys with him and get on the bus. They're worried they're going to get in trouble for losing their car. At this point, some other policeman in charge has split us into different groups, and my original AO's partner is now my AO. We get on the bus ... We find out we're going to Bed-Stuy.

Outside the station, we wait in the bus a bit. The driver remarks that we smell better than typical inmates. One of the AOs comes in to take his guy's information. My AO forgets who he had, so he just grabs seven random people. I get let out with a group and apparently have a new AO, one I've never seen before.

We get to the police station. The cops there can't believe what's going on. So much paperwork! So much processing! As each new wave of people come in, they go, "more?!?" It feels like this is the first time they've ever had to process anyone. There's no real system, they're just making it up as they go along, they keep switching what they're doing. My AO is writing down our information in a tiny notebook, and doing a bad job. "Home town?" Woodside. He writes "West Side." No, Woodside, in Queens. He adds "Queens" but doesn't change "West Side". West Side, Queens? What kind of New Yorker hasn't heard of Woodside?

It's strange since we all have our IDs, but they don't seem to care for accuracy. They make a point of being unable to pronounce any remotely ethnic name.

The jail cells are completely full at this point, so they take us to the holding cell. We have basically enough room to stand, though if you sit with your knees to your chest, you can eke out enough room to rest your head; the women's cell is smaller.

And then we wait. They start letting us use the bathroom one at a time (there's none in the cell because it's a holding cell, not a jail cell). They tell us to go if we have to, because they won't let anyone go after that. When someone does need to use it later, a cop says "No, no more going to the bathroom." She starts crying though, so eventually another cop lets her use it. There is a lot of conversation about what happened that day, what is going to happen to us, and why we are all protesting.

They bring us water after a few hours, then some government cheese sandwiches: two pieces of old bread and a slice of cheese.

The holding cell room also houses their finger-print machine, which is the most high-tech thing in the station, and the only thing that seems to work, though no one seems to know how to operate it. Two or three protesters have their fingerprints taken. They're checking us for bench warrants, and a few have one. One guy had no idea, he just didn't go to court after a speeding ticket or something.

They gave some of us "D.A.T.s" and some of us summons. They said they changed their minds halfway through on what to give us. We were asking what the difference was, and they said there wasn't a difference (then why is it called different things?) The people with DATs had it for disorderly conduct, failure to disperse, and something else which I forget. My summons was for disorderly conduct, and I have to appear in court in December (there was one large group appearing in November, and another in December). It's kind of strange to divide the group into summons and DATs since the way they were "arresting" us was random, even voluntary, and we were shuffled around and rearranged so much that it was basically random the order we were brought to the police station, which was how they split us up between summons and DATs. Not that we were arrested or charged or read our rights; it was just a cop with a bunch of cuffs going "who's next?"

It's around 3am when we are all left out and free to go. The National Lawyer's Guild was out front checking our names off their list and taking our information down for further contact. They would guide us through the next step of the process when it comes time for our hearings. There's even talk that they could get all of this thrown out before we even have to go to court.

Julia Danner, Stony Point, NY

I was arrested with three other people by a commander. He cuffed us and threw us (he was rough) into the line, and was out of our vicinity before we could register his name or his badge number or anything that would further identify him.

We stood in line for about forty minutes or so and then were loaded onto the MTA bus. We were driven to the 75th Precinct in Brooklyn--On the way, the bus we were in actually picked up a pedestrian and took her to her next stop!

Once at the precinct, we were taken in and it appeared (which was later confirmed by an officer) that they were in no way prepared and had not been expecting us. I was questioned very briefly by a rough and abrasive officer about my name, my age, etc. He then looked me up and down and started to write something next to my ethnicity and then very harshly demanded "Are you even white?" I was shocked by the question and before I could say anything, he scribbled something on the paper and physically moved me away from him into another line.

We were then all taken into the cell area and lined up against the wall to await formal processing. There were two young officers (both 23) who were charged with 'watching us', and proceeded to tell us that they had absolutely no idea what was going on or what we had even done. Then, the different arresting officers flowed through and picked up their arresting groups to go be processed.

My group and I (three other women) were never collected nor did we see our arresting officer. We stood against the wall for at least 45 minutes longer than everyone else (they were in the cells by that time) until someone finally listened to us say that we had yet to be collected by our officer.

We were then assigned a 'new arresting officer', Officer Titus, and uncuffed, and put in a cell. Something that I did notice was that different police officers were taking out their personal phones and taking pictures of those of us against the wall. We were released around 1:30 am.

Lena Tsodikovich, 24, freelance writer, Brooklyn, NY

I was bussed with about 40 women, a 64-year old male member of the press, and a trans-woman to the 75th precinct in Brooklyn. We arrived after 8pm to a small overcrowded facility, were lined up against a wall for over an hour, and photographed incessantly by plainclothes detectives. Nobody was read their rights or formally charged. Despite pleas from some of the women, we were denied water and bathroom access for over four hours, resulting in some accidents.

Our arresting officers were interchangeably supportive, annoyed, mocking and nonchalant. Some of them offered jokes like "Whoever doesn't eat meat, raise your hands" and mic checks that confused detainees attempting to set up a buddy system for returning to Liberty Plaza upon release. Some of them seemed to stretch the hours to rack up overtime. Others passed out toilet paper and sanitary items in the holding cells. Some kept locally arrested men from harassing us. Many asked if it was all worth it. Most of the police remained respectful.